Standard Chartered expects Ethena’s USDe stablecoin to expand sharply over the next two years, with supply potentially reaching $40 billion by the end of 2028. The British bank also initiated coverage of Ethena’s ENA token with a $2 year-end 2028 price target, according to Cointelegraph, which cited a research report shared on Wednesday.
The forecast would represent an eightfold increase in USDe’s supply from its current level cited by the bank. Standard Chartered expects USDe to grow slightly faster than the overall stablecoin market as Ethena develops additional ways to generate yield.
Ethena’s growth strategy
USDe is designed as a digital dollar asset that seeks to maintain a value close to $1 while generating returns through trading and other yield-producing strategies. Ethena initially relied heavily on a crypto basis trade, which generally involves holding an asset in the spot market while taking an offsetting short position in perpetual futures.
Standard Chartered said returns from that strategy have been declining. In response, Ethena has been broadening its activities to include decentralized finance, institutional lending, real-world assets, and basis trades connected to equities and commodities.
The bank said these sources currently produce a blended yield of 5.2%, giving the protocol more scope to expand USDe. Its forecast also depends on growth in tokenized assets, a market Standard Chartered expects to increase from approximately $350 billion today to $4 trillion by the end of 2028.
The bank’s ENA target of $2 is about seven times the $0.28 price referenced in its report. Its projections also imply that ENA would outperform Bitcoin and Ether through 2028. Standard Chartered’s year-end 2028 targets for those assets are $300,000 for Bitcoin and $18,000 for Ether.
Buybacks are central to the ENA case
A key part of Standard Chartered’s valuation argument is the relationship between USDe supply and ENA token buybacks. Ethena governance approved a fee switch in early September that directs 95% of net revenue from the protocol’s business lines toward ENA purchases once specified USDe supply milestones are reached.
Ethena estimates that a USDe supply of $25 billion could support $375 million in annual ENA buybacks. That estimate assumes a 6% gross protocol yield and a 25% net revenue take rate.
At the bank’s $40 billion USDe forecast, Standard Chartered estimates annual buybacks could equal roughly 23% of ENA’s circulating market capitalization if the token’s price did not change. The bank described that level as unlikely to be sustainable. It expects ENA’s price to rise, reducing buybacks as a percentage of the token’s market value.
For comparison, Standard Chartered pointed to Uniswap, where annualized buybacks have stabilized at about 3% to 4% as the UNI token price increased.
Current market picture
Moneyiar data at 9:14 a.m. on October 1, 2026, showed ENA at $0.2613, down 0.44% over 24 hours but up 29.8% over seven days. USDe was priced at $0.9999, with a 0.01% 24-hour gain and a 0.03% seven-day increase.
Moneyiar data at 9:13 a.m. showed Ether at $2,687.77, up 0.39% in 24 hours and 1.01% over seven days. The figures provide a snapshot of trading conditions following the bank’s forecast; they do not alter Standard Chartered’s longer-term projections.
